HISTORY TIP OF THE DAY

John Wilkes Booth’s co-conspirators are executed, July 7, 1865

The trial began on May 10, and 366 witnesses were called before it was over seven weeks later. From the beginning, the public viewed all the conspirators as clearly criminals. After deliberating for three days, the jury finds all eight defendants guilty. Four are sentenced to death. They are marched to a ten-foot-high gallows, with freshly dug graves beneath. They are seated in chairs, their hands and arms tied to their bodies. The death sentences are read in alphabetical order: George Atzerodt, David Herold, Lewis Powell, and Mary Surratt, the first and only woman hanged by the United States government.

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